The last of the three brigantines had just entered the port when the rattle of arquebus shots resounded from behind the rocks which bordered the beach to the right of where the Rochelois women were assembled. It rained bullets. Women and children, mortally wounded, dropped dead around Theresa and Cornelia. The unexpected attack of the royalist soldiers in ambush threw the unfortunate women into a panic. They had come wholly unarmed, bent upon gathering clams along the beach, and not looking for danger except from the batteries of Bayhead. It happened that a part of that garrison consisted of troops of the guard of the Duke of Anjou, under the command of the Marquis of Montbar, one of the Prince's favorites, and the most noted debauchee of the whole royalist army. So soon as he perceived the Rochelois women spread along the beach, the Marquis set his soldiers in motion, ordered them to slide out of the redoubt, and to creep noiselessly, under cover of the rocks and of the shadows that they projected, with the object in view of massacring a large number of the heroic women, whose intrepidity the royalists had more than once tasted to their sorrow, and of seizing several of them for the orgies of the Duke of Anjou's tent. Accordingly, after unmasking his ambuscade by the first round of arquebus shots, the Marquis of Montbar rushed with his soldiers upon the startled and panic-stricken women, crying: "Kill all the old ones! Take the handsomest and youngest prisoners! God's blood! You can easily distinguish the pretty girls from the old and ugly! The moon is bright!"
The scene that followed was frightful to behold. Many of the "old" ones were ruthlessly butchered, as ordered by the Catholic captain. Others, having escaped the fire of the arquebuses and the ensuing carnage, finding themselves unarmed, and unable to resist the soldiers, sought safety in flight in the direction of the Two Mills Gate. Still others stood their ground and defended themselves with the energy of despair against the guards who sought to seize them. Among the latter was Cornelia, who, in the turmoil, was separated from Theresa Rennepont as both sought to reach the city. The Marquis of Montbar, happening to be near where Cornelia was struggling in the hands of several soldiers, and struck by the beauty of the girl, called out to his men: "Take care you do not hurt her—keep her alive! God's blood, she is a royal morsel! I reserve her for Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou."
Cornelia, whose wound was re-opened in her struggle with the soldiers, felt herself losing strength and consciousness through loss of blood. She fell in a faint at the feet of Montbar. By his orders two of his guards raised her by her feet and shoulders, and carried her away like a corpse. Several other Rochelois women, who were likewise carried off captive to the Bayhead redoubt, now lying in ruins through Captain Mirant's manoeuvre, were that night victims of the brutality of both captains and soldiers. Finally many others succeeded in reaching the Two Mills Gate at the moment that a company of Protestants, attracted by the sound of arquebus shots, sallied from the city and were hastening to the beach. Alas, it was too late! Already the inrushing tide was submerging the dead and the dying victims of the royalist ambush. Already the water reached the foot of the rocks and intercepted the progress of the Rochelois. They could not pursue the enemy who, among other prisoners, carried away the inanimate body of Captain Mirant's daughter at the very hour that the daring mariner weighed anchor in the port of La Rochelle amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DUKE OF ANJOU.
The headquarters of the royal army were at the suburb of Font, now in ruins. The Duke of Anjou, brother of King Charles IX, occupied at Font, in the center of the royal encampment, a house that went by the name of the "Reservoir," since within its yard lay the reservoir into which the waters were gathered that the now destroyed aqueduct conducted into La Rochelle. The Prince's headquarters, although wrecked by the war, were repaired, and made fit for the royal guest, thanks to the industry of his valets, who upholstered and equipped the ruins with a mass of tapestries and furniture which the pack-mules carried in the wake of the army. The Prince's oratory, where, either in sacrilegious derision, or perhaps yielding to a mixture of fanaticism and lewdness, he both performed his orisons and indulged his debaucheries, was tapestried in violet velvet, garlanded with fringes that were gathered up by gold and silver tassels. Daylight never penetrated the voluptuous retreat, which only a vermillion chandelier illumined with its candles of perfumed wax. On one side of the apartment stood a prayer-stool surmounted with an ivory crucifix; on the opposite side was a thickly cushioned lounge. A Turkish carpet covered the floor. A velvet portiere, closed at this moment, communicated with an inside room.
It was about eight in the evening. Cornelia Mirant, captured on the beach of La Rochelle the night before by the Marquis of Montbar, had just been introduced by him into the oratory of the Duke of Anjou. A feverish agitation imparted an unwonted glow to the countenance of the young girl. Her eyes glistened; her beauty was particularly radiant; a certain coquetish touch was noticeable in the arrangement of her hair; her Rochelois clothing, torn to shreds during the previous night's encounter, had been changed for a robe of poppy-red brocade. A broad embroidered scarf supported and concealed her right hand. The wound she received the day before on the neck had been dressed with care by one of the Duke's own surgeons. Monsieur Montbar—a youth barely twenty years of age, but whose delicate features were prematurely blighted by incontinence—had exchanged his war armor for the apparel of the court. His hair was artistically curled. From his ears hung a pair of earrings encrusted with precious stones; jet black frills hung down from his wrists and encased his hands; a short mantle was thrown over his shoulders; tight-fitting hose and a toque garnished with a brooch of rubies completed his dainty outfit. The Marquis had just brought Cornelia into the oratory, and was saying to her: "My pretty saucebox, you are now in the oratory of the Prince of Anjou, brother of our well-beloved King Charles IX."
"One feels as if in a palace of fairies!" answered Cornelia looking around with feigned and childish wonderment. "Oh, what splendid tapestries! What gorgeous ornaments! It seems I must be dreaming, monseigneur! Can it be possible that the Prince, so great a Prince, deigns to cast his eyes upon so poor a girl as I?"
"Come, my pretty lassy, do not cast down your eyes. Be sincere—you shall ever after feel the glory of having been, if but for one day, the mistress of the King of France's brother. But what are you thinking about?"
"Monseigneur, all this that is happening to me seems a dream. No! You are making sport of a poor girl. Monseigneur the Duke of Anjou does not think of me."
"You will see him in a minute, I assure you; he is just now in conference with Fra Hervé, his confessor." And turning towards the still closed portiere, he proceeded: "I hear the curtains drawn back, and steps in the neighboring room—it is monseigneur."